The present invention relates to a system and method of managing products, and more particularly, to a system and method of managing products over a network.
When a user purchases electronic equipment such as a television or a personal computer (PC), the purchased equipment comes with a warranty on which a purchase date, a shop name, etc. are written. When the equipment fails, the user brings the equipment to the shop together with the warranty to have the shop fix it free of charge if the equipment is still under warranty, or for pay if it is out of warranty, for example. This is how purchased equipment is typically serviced in traditional ways of product management.
A next-generation Internet addressing technology, IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6), is now being implemented for use in advanced networking in the coming years. A key feature of IPv6 is its ability to meet impending needs for more addresses, with its space available for as many as 128 bits (i.e., 3.4×1038 addresses available), making its predecessor, IPv4, obsolete. Under IPv6, even home appliances such as televisions can have their IP addresses, in addition to PCs, allowing home appliances to be linked with servers so that the servers can render service and support under networked product management.
In some situations under the above-described traditional product management based on warranties, a user of electronic equipment who has lost its warranty card can no longer have it serviced under warranty, i.e., the user has to have the equipment serviced at his or her expense, even within the warranty period. In these situations, a new approach to product management is called for.
Additionally, in some other situations, even if a manufacturer sells a software product under a licensing agreement that the product be used by only one PC, a user often installs the software product to multiple PCs. In still other situations, a user feels cumbersome when upgrading software, and a user may be hassled to find right solutions to some wrong PC settings. Also in these situations, a need is felt for an improved mechanism of product management.